


Barking Up The Wrong Tree

by IdrisTardis7878



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen, but i don't think it'll ever happen now and it stands on its own, for a series of drabbles, pairing: DeVil King, pairing: dimples & gin, sass and banter, set towards the end of 5x21 - Last Rites, there were more ideas for this, this is pure cracky silliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-14 15:07:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16915176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IdrisTardis7878/pseuds/IdrisTardis7878
Summary: Left to languish in the afterlife, Underbrooke's new mayor sets her sights on a king.





	Barking Up The Wrong Tree

**Author's Note:**

> Just a bit of cracky silly fun set towards the end of 5x21 - Last Rites. Originally posted on tumblr on May 28, 2016.
> 
> I gave the Blind Witch a name - Hilda - so I wouldn't have to call her "The Blind Witch" all the time.

Cruella crept quietly over to the diner’s counter and perched carefully on one of the stools, determined to flag down the establishment’s somewhat mercurial – and currently missing in action – proprietress.

Normally, she would have waited in the comfort of her favorite booth for her order to be brought to her – it was only  _right_ she be treated with deference, she  _was_  the new Mayor, after all.

But she was  _dying_  – figuratively speaking, of course – for a fresh martini and, if she were being honest with herself, it didn’t hurt that the counter seats had a clearer view of Main Street from out of the diner’s front windows.

_All the better to see when – or if – that delicious pair of bestubbled do-gooders returns from the River of Lost Souls. Though, to be fair, one of them held distinctly more appeal than the other…_

“I think you’re barking up the wrong tree with that one, dear,” Hilda intoned breathily, appearing practically out of nowhere at Cruella’s elbow and sniffing the air in that unnerving way of hers.

Cruella narrowed her eyes at the other woman, not that the witch could see her. “Dog puns, darling? Really? Isn’t that a bit beneath you?” She wasn’t really bothered by them, not anymore, not after she’d heard so many throughout her life – and afterlife. But at some point, such easy humor  _does_  get tiresome.

Hilda shrugged, fiddling absently with one of the bowls of peppers dotting the countertop. “Perhaps, but do you deny that you’d rather have  _him_  beneath  _you_?” she asked bluntly. “I don’t need eyes to know that you were practically salivating over him, Cruella dear.” She paused, sniffing again. “I could sense it all the way from the supply closet. It was…overpowering.”

Huffing in indignation, Cruella slid her glass forcefully across the counter towards the other woman. “Refill, if you don’t mind. Make it a double.” Hilda wasn’t  _wrong_ , but did she have to be so obvious about calling her out on her instant interest in Underbrooke’s newcomer?  _I’ve just been so lonely since Chiselchin took my darling Jimmy away from me_. She pouted, seething silently for a moment over the unjust loss of her pet sheriff, and almost missed the fact that Hilda had begun speaking again.

“I just meant that he had too much of the…aroma of righteous purpose floating around him when he left here with the Captain. I think you might find it difficult to…convince him to abandon that, should he return.” She pushed the now-filled glass back across the counter just as a flash of movement outside the diner’s windows caught Cruella’s attention.

Striding commandingly down the nearly empty street, armor glinting even in the dull reddish Underbrooke sun, Arthur  _had_ returned from the excursion to the river – apparently alone.  _Interesting_ , Cruella thought, taking a sip of her drink and relishing the burn of the gin as it slid down her throat. But she spared no more than a moment’s consideration for what might have happened to the Captain when she realized that Arthur was headed in the direction of the Mayor’s office.

She flashed a nearly feral grin in Hilda’s direction before taking one more long sip of her drink and pushing off of her stool. As she made her way to the door, intent on following after the wayward king and finding out just what in (literal)  _hell_ he thought he was doing, she briefly looked back over her shoulder at Hilda. 

“Well, luckily darling, I can be  _very_  persuasive.”


End file.
